Police tape surrounds a homeless camp where Brandy Majors, 38, had been camping before the city of Denver cleared the camp out on Oct. 29, 2018. “My husband abandoned me four months ago and I have nothing,” Majors said.

The attorneys suing Denver over its sweeps of homeless encampments asked a federal judge on Monday to suspend enforcement of the city’s camping ban ahead of, and during, next month’s scheduled trial in the class-action lawsuit.

The judge then ordered the city of Denver to file a response by Feb. 11.

The motion, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, alleges that the camping ban “infringes on the plaintiff class’ constitutional right of access to the courts (and) fair trial.”

Attorney Jason Flores-Williams said that witnesses are scheduled to testify beginning at 9 a.m. on the days of the trial, but if the camping ban continues to be enforced, it’s highly likely any witnesses who are homeless will not be able to make it — and that “makes it untenable for us to present this case at trial.”

“I want three weeks in which my clients aren’t harassed, detained, arrested, their property seized, or in any way interacted with from the Denver Police Department because it interferes with our rights to put on a fair trial,” Flores-Williams said.

The Denver City Attorney’s Office did not immediately return a request for comment. The motion states that the city opposed the initial request for the suspension several months ago and did not respond to the same request on Jan. 30.

The attorneys are asking for enforcement to be suspended beginning one week prior to the trial, which is scheduled for March 12 and expected to last 10 days.

“Thousands of hurting and exhausted homeless people have believed and struggled for three years to provide evidence and testimony to this court,” the attorneys wrote in their motion. “Now, all they are asking for is three weeks so that they can do so with dignity.

“Without this simple order protecting the integrity of this adjudication, which a besieged plaintiff class has struggled for three years to achieve, a trial regarding the most fundamental of rights will be overshadowed by evidentiary questions and concerns,” it states.

Terese Howard, of the advocacy group Denver Homeless Out Loud, said individuals experiencing homelessness “are being pushed farther and farther away from downtown and scattered around the city.”

That makes it harder to get witnesses to trial, she said, because organizers such as herself are unable to find them and to bring them to the trial to testify.

According to the motion, people who are homeless in Denver are harassed and detained on the way to the courthouse, and are chased away from downtown, making it harder to get to the courthouse.

“Plaintiffs’ property is seized so that that they are forced to choose between using their voice or losing their possessions,” the attorneys write in the motions. It added that these conditions violate the First, Fourth and Fourteenth amendments.

Flores-Williams added that he thinks the court is interested in maintaining the integrity of its adjudications, particularly after the last three years of litigation in this case.

Saja Hindi is a breaking news reporter for The Denver Post. She previously worked at the Fort Collins Coloradoan and the Loveland Reporter-Herald, and before that in print and radio in North Carolina. During that time, she's covered politics, social issues, law enforcement and public safety, with a focus on accountability.

Denver Sheriff Patrick Firman's resignation this week culminated years of mistrust from deputies and community activists, who said that was the price of filling the position with a man who was never the right person for the job.